Athletes are frequent visitors of the Forbes ratings and people are used to seeing soccer players in the top of the richest people charts. Being the most popular sport in the world, with the highest paid teams, best odds online sports betting sites offering for the top events, and the most expensive stadiums, football is certainly a source of enormous profit for its stars.
Certainly, the income of soccer players does not come from their contracts and transfers; they also get high wages from their sponsorship and advertisement agreements, but this article is about the officially registered incomes players get only from their clubs as a fixed salary that is guaranteed by the contract and extra bonuses and money awards gained for the brilliant performance within the major events.
Lionel Messi
- FC: Barcelona
- Salary: 126 million USD
Even though the Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the financial state of all football clubs and sports industry in general, this athlete does not seem to suffer from the lack of income in 2020.
Lionel Messi is the acknowledged top soccer player of the world, and this is not the first time when he becomes the first in a rating of the most popular, most google searched, and the highest paid football stars of the world.
His salary in The Barcelona club is 126 million USD at the moment. This is the highest amount that Messi himself and anyone else in the world of soccer has ever gained for the past several years. Messi’s status in the soccer world is exclusive and there is probably no need to enumerate all his awards, achievements, and titles. His latest performance, though, was not so ultimate: he scored the anti-record of the Champion League by making eleven goal attempts, none of which were successful. Such disappointing performance has become the worst failure of Barcelona since 2003.
However, at the moment, Lionel Messi still remains his title of the best active soccer player and one of the most outstanding athletes of all times according to most ratings and football enthusiasts supporting Spain. There is no information of any changes in his contract with Barcelona at the moment, but his wages from advertisements and side projects might become lower due to the whole world crisis mixed with his latest poor performance.
In April Messi announced in his Instagram account that the monthly payouts of all players including the key ones in the club were cut by 70 percent, in accordance to the mutual agreement between the club members and the management, and, in addition, 2 percent of the total amount are going to be invested monthly in a club’s fund to support the staff of the club in order to avoid a major layoff.
Cristiano Ronaldo
FC: Juventus
Salary: 117 million USD
Ronaldo is also a large figure in the world of sports and he is regularly called the main competitor of Messi who is his main rival in the fight for the title of the world’s best soccer player. Nevertheless, Ronaldo is the second biggest soccer star of the world whose income reached 117 million USD in 2020, which is almost as large as Messi’s income.
More than that, he could be the first in this rating: Messi was awarded with the Golden Ball prize more times than Ronaldo, however, during the last year the total career income of Ronaldo reached 1 billion dollars, which is the highest amount in the whole history of football.
Such a result is significant not only among the football players, but the world athletes in general: Ronaldo is the third athlete who gained a capital of 1 billion USD before the end of career, and the 1st footballer with such a result in the world. His Forbes rating position is currently higher than Messi and, as his contract with Juventus FC is valid till 2022, his total bankroll will have reached even more solid figures.
Neymar Da Silva
- FC: Paris Saint Germain
- Salary: 105 million USD
Neymar, the captain of Brazil National Team, keeps appearing in the ratings of the highest paid football stars. In addition, he does not hide his expenses, so the tabloids regularly publish content of his luxury houses, high-end cars, among which are Audi R8, and Panamera, his private jet and yacht.
During 2020, Neymar has earned approximately 105 000 000 USD. It includes his fixed salary in accordance to his PSG contract, and bonuses for the brilliant performance on the field.
His total wages, of course, do not consist of the football club payouts. His Nike, Red Bull, Sony, and other companies’ advertisement campaigns double his soccer salary; in addition, he cooperates with the SMM managers in Instagram; one advertising post in his account costs approximately 660 000 USD.
Kylian Mbappé
- FC: Paris Saint Germain
- Salary: 42 million USD
Another star of Paris Saint Germain, twice a Best Goalscorer of the League 1 winner, Kylian Mbappé, was recently offered the same contract conditions as Neymar has. This means that his salary from the football club will be doubled to reach 683 000 EUR per week.
Obviously, Paris Saint Germain is rather concerned about the future presence of Mbappe in the team, that is why his wages may become higher after the current agreement expires in 2022. At the moment, his annual income he gets from his game is 42 million dollars, and if the pandemic situation, or any personal reasons do not change the intentions of PSG, he will be even more wealthy and able to pretend for the top charts of the highest paid athletes of team sports of all time.
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